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[Illustration: titlepage]
The Other Side of
Evolution
Its Effects and Fallacy
BY
REV. ALEXANDER PATTERSON
Director, Presbyterian Training School of Chicago
Author of
"The Greater Life and Work of Christ," "The Bible As It Is,"
"Bird's-Eye Bible Study" and "The Bible Manual."
[Illustration: logo]
CHICAGO
THE BIBLE INSTITUTE COLPORTAGE ASSOCIATION
826 NORTH LA SALLE STREET
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
THE BIBLE INSTITUTE COLPORTAGE
ASSOCIATION OF CHICAGO
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PREFACE.
Claims of Evolution. -- Interest in subject. -- Effect
on Christian belief. -- Opinion of eminent scholars.
-- Effect on the common man. -- Evolution being accepted
on exparte evidence. -- Question too important
to be left to science. -- The average man capable of
understanding the arguments. -- The court of last
resort. vii
INTRODUCTION.
Meaning of Evolution. -- Conversational and scientific
use of the word. -- Le Conte's definition. -- Spencer's
Spheres of Evolution. -- Theistic and Atheistic
Evolution. -- The origin of man, the vital point. -- The
Bible account and Darwin's. xix
CHAPTER I.
EVOLUTION IS AN UNPROVEN THEORY.
Nearly all evolutionists admit this. -- Citations from
Tyndall, Spencer, Huxley, Prof. Conn, Whitney,
Dr. J. A. Zahm, Dr. Rudolph Schmidt, and others. --
Evolution rejected by many and opposed. -- Complaint
of Prof. Haeckel on this. -- Prof. Virchow's
opposition. -- List of scientists who do not advocate
Evolution. -- Discarded theories of the past. --
Uncertainty of scientific theories in general. 5
CHAPTER II.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE AND EARTH.
The four problems facing Evolution, the origin of
matter, of force, the formation and orderly adjustment
of the universe and the origin of life. -- Evolution
makes no attempt at the first two. -- Spencer admits
it is the unknowable. -- Lord Kelvin's testimony. --
Prof. George Frederick Wright on the Nebular
Hypothesis. -- The solar system unique. -- The fire-mist
and its wonderful contents. -- Failure as to
origin of life. -- Le Conte's theory. -- Testimony of
Tyndall, Wilson, Conn, against spontaneous generation. 17
CHAPTER III.
EVOLUTION OF SPECIES.
Evolution's great field. -- No case of evolution known
--No cause of evolution known. -- How evolution originated
species. -- Argument from Geology. -- Geologists
opposing it; Sir J. W. Dawson, Sir R. Murchison, Barrande.
-- Prof. Conn's admissions. -- Haeckel's admissions. --
The argument from Morphology. -- Rudimentary parts. --
The Eohippus, "Old Horse." -- Argument from classification
of species. -- No agreed classification. -- Evolution's
phantom tree. -- No changes in Egypt's 4,000 years or
prehistoric man's longer time. -- Distribution of plants
and animals. -- Argument from Embryology. -- The
three-fold argument of Evolution. -- Facts opposing
Evolution. 26
CHAPTER IV.
THE EVOLUTION OF MAN.
The vital question. -- All evolutionists agree here. -- The
two accounts of Bible and Evolution. -- Arguments
from origin of species. -- Argument from similarity
of structure. -- Argument from human characteristics. --
Rudimentary organs in man. -- The "gill-slits." -- How
the brute became man. -- Prof. Edward Clodd's
account of "The Making of a Man." -- Edward
Morris' description of primeval man. -- The Theistic
Evolutionist's Adam and how he fell. -- The Missing
Link. -- The Calaveras skull. -- Neanderthal skull. --
Haeckel's "Pithecanthropus-Erectus." -- The Colorado
monkey's skeleton. -- Croatia skeletons. -- Argument
from the brain. -- Prof. Clodd's story of how
man got his brain. -- Argument from language. -- Prof.
Max Mueller's protest. -- Argument from prehistoric
man.--Antiquity of man. -- Testimony as to
man's recent origin from Prof. George Frederick
Wright, S. R. Pattison, Prof. Friedrich Pfaff, Winchell,
Dr. J. A. Zahm.--Argument from uncivilized
races. -- Argument from history of limits of man's
history. -- Evolution and religion. -- Evolution's ethics.
-- Christian experience.--Christ and evolution. 60
CHAPTER V.
EVOLUTION UNSCIENTIFIC AND UNPHILOSOPHICAL.
Four steps necessary to proof, Facts, Classification,
Inferences, Verification. -- Fails to account for
facts. -- Has no classification. -- False in inferences
and has no verification. -- Rests on imagination. --
Tyndall's "Scientific Use of the Imagination." --
Evolution the Doctrine of Chance revamped and clothed
in scientific terms. 112
CHAPTER VI.
EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE.
Evolution has no scriptural argument. -- The two accounts
mutually exclusive. -- Bible account appealed
to by all Scripture writers as Fact. -- Evolution's
interpretation of Scripture. -- Christ's testimony to the
facts of Scripture. -- Evolution and Bible doctrines. --
Importance of Adam as basis of Scripture doctrine. -- Man's
state and remedy as given by Evolution and by the Bible. --
The future of the Bible and of Evolution. -- Evolution in
its logical form is Atheism.--Evolution a relic of
heathenism.--Testimony of James Freeman Clarke, Sir J.
William Dawson. 120
CHAPTER VII.
THE SPIRITUAL EFFECT OF EVOLUTION.
Must affect the spiritual state. -- Effect on candidates for
ministry. -- Latent effect on faith. -- On experimental
religion. -- Evolution as a state of heart. -- A comfortable
theory to the impenitent. -- Prepares for "isms." -- Weakens
pulpit power. -- Eliminates faith in the supernatural and
eternal. -- Education's place in modern giving. -- Is this
the last form of unbelief? -- The common people and the
Gospel of the Cross. 137
PREFACE.
Evolution is claimed by its advocates to be the greatest
intellectual discovery of the past century, and, by some, the
greatest thought that ever entered the mind of man. In the words of
its greatest philosopher, Herbert Spencer, "It spans the universe
and solves the widest range of its problems, which reach outward
through boundless space, and back through illimitable time,
resolving the deepest problems of life, mind, society, history and
civilization." It has woven into one great philosophy the history
of the material universe, the entire organic creation, man and all
his faculties, the whole course of human history and the origin and
progress of all religion.
It also undertakes to account for the Bible, for what is popularly
called higher criticism represents the biblical branch of Evolution.
It has reconstructed the Bible and remanded its miraculous
narratives to the realm of myth. It has formulated a theology in
which the most sacred doctrines of evangelical belief are discarded.
In its central theory of the origin of man, it vitally affects the
doctrines of the nature of man, of sin and penalty, man's need and
the work of Christ. It even touches the person of Christ, for many
of its advocates say that He too comes within its scope. In its
radical and most consistent form, it utterly discards belief in God.
Most of the great teachers of Evolution, such as Ernst Haeckel of
Jena, are and have been atheists.
It is true that many evolutionists are theistic. But it is not
enough to be theistic. The devil is "theistic," so was Thomas
Paine. Christianity is far more than theism. It is the grossest
sophistry to teach that because a belief has some truth in it we
must therefore tolerate it. All false doctrine is sugarcoated with
truth. That we are not overstating the dangerous nature of the
theory will appear from the following opinions of competent scholars
and observers.
Prof. George Frederick Wright, the eminent geologist, says of
Evolution: "It is the fad of the present, which is making such
havoc and confusion in the thought of the age, leading so many into
intellectual positions, whose conclusions they dare not face and
cannot flank, and from which they cannot retreat except through the
valley of humiliation." (_Bibliotheca Sacra_, April, 1900.)
Prof. George Howison sounds this alarm: "It is a portent so
threatening to the highest concerns of man, that we ought to look
before we leap and look more than once. Under the sheen of the
evolutionary account of man, the world of real persons, the world
of individual responsibility, disappears; with it disappears the
personality of God." (_Limits of Evolution_, pp. 5, 6.)
There is a vital connection between Facts, Doctrines, Experiences,
Conduct and Prospects. These successively flow from each other.
Christianity rests on facts, from these we derive doctrines and from
doctrines come experiences, which give rise to conduct and that ends
in suitable prospects. Facts form the basis of Christianity. When,
therefore, Evolution attacks the Facts of the Bible, it attempts to
undermine the very basis of all Christianity. President Francis L.
Patton has said: "You may put your philosophy in one pocket and your
religion in another and think that, as they are separate, they will
not interfere, but that will not work. You have to bring your theory
of the universe and your theory of religion together. This is the
work of this age."
While all do not go the length of the radical evolutionists, yet
such is the natural working of the human mind, that this will be its
logical conclusion. If this theory is accepted, we must look for
widespread lapse from all Christian faith and, as conduct follows
belief in all intelligent creatures, we shall see also great moral
declension.
To the ordinary man, the matter appears in this light: If we cannot
believe a man's statements we will not take his advice. If we cannot
believe the Bible's narratives why should we believe its religion?
If it is not trustworthy as to facts of this world, why depend upon
it as to the other world? If it cannot teach correctly the nature of
insects and animals, why should it be able to tell us the nature of
God? The common man reasons rightly. The Bible must stand or fall by
its reliability all along the line of truth of every kind.
Evolution is being taught, or taken for granted to-day in high
schools, academies, colleges, universities, and seminaries. It meets
the Sunday School scholar at the first chapter of Genesis. A busy
city pastor says he has been asked about it every day in the week.
It is a living question and must be met. In every free library are
the works of Spencer, Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley and others, and these
are read continually.
It does seem as if the other side of such a question ought to be
given and considered, if there be another side, and there certainly
is.
The theory of Evolution is being accepted to-day upon ex-parte
evidence. The books on Evolution are numbered by hundreds, those
giving the other side are few. Many do not even read for themselves
but rely upon the weight of noted names, or the supposed "consensus
of scholarship."
It is even asserted that none but scholars have the right to
discuss the subject. Dr. Lyman Abbott says in his "Evidences of
Christianity" that "those who are not scientists must be content to
await the final judgment of those who are experts on this subject,
and meanwhile accept tentatively their conclusions." Not to notice
this demand that we rest on an unfinished theory, might we not ask
permission to accept, "tentatively" at least, the Bible as it is,
while awaiting the conclusions of scientists as to what we shall
think or believe about it; especially in view of the fact that all
that has been done so far by Christianity on earth has been effected
by the conservative belief in the Bible.
But non-scientific people are able to comprehend Evolution. The
scientist to-day is able to state conclusions in language the
non-scientific can readily understand, and the evolutionist himself
tells us we can understand his facts and arguments. So we who are
not scientists may proceed to investigate a subject in which we
have so much at stake. The questions involved are too important to
be left to the scientist alone. The scientist is mainly a witness
as to the facts of nature. It is the duty of the whole body of the
intelligent Christian community, lay and clerical, to generalize and
draw conclusions. These form, as they have in the past, the court
of last resort in such discussions. The best generalizer will be,
not the scientist whose labors are necessarily confined to a single
science, or even to a department of it, and who may be even more or
less biased by his environment, but the best juryman will be the
intelligent non-scientific mind. It is before the judgment seat of
Christian Common Sense that this and all other theories must appear.
It is the man in the pew who says to this pastor, Come, and he
cometh, and to that professor, Go, and he goeth.
Nor is this examination premature. Evolution has been now for many
years before the public and its writings fill libraries. We may
assume that the evidence is now before us and, if not all in, at
least enough is given us by which to judge its nature and probable
outcome. This we may further assume in view of the fact that the
advocates of the theory admit that an increasing number of facts are
not giving increasing evidence but that their case is more beset
with difficulties than in the day of Darwin, the father of the
hypothesis, or rather, its step-father. So we may proceed with our
examination.
The author of this book makes no claim to being a scientist. He is
simply one of the great jury to whom this theory appeals. He has,
therefore, here simply considered the evidence and given herein his
conclusions. The facts and arguments of evolutionary writers will
form the chief source of the examination. Nearly one hundred writers
and works are cited. Out of its own mouth we will condemn it.
The citations in a book as small as this must be brief but care has
been taken that they are fair as to the points they are given to
show. It is not claimed that the citations from evolutionary writers
exhibit their opinion on the whole subject but that they do show
their fatal admissions and their general uncertainty on the whole
subject.
It will be shown that Evolution is not accepted by all scientists
and scholars; that it is rejected by some of the greatest of these;
that it is admittedly an unproven theory; that it has never been
verified and cannot be; that not a single case of evolution has
ever been presented, and that there is no known cause by which it
could take place. Its arguments will be considered one by one and
their fallacy shown. It will be shown to be, by its own principles,
unscientific and unphilosophical, and simply a revamping of the old
doctrine of Chance clothed in scientific terms. Finally, it will be
shown that it is violently opposed to the narrative and doctrines of
the Bible and destructive of all Christian faith; that it originated
in heathenism and ends in atheism.
Much of the material in this book has been presented by the author
in lectures upon the Bible during Bible institutes and conferences,
and he has been frequently requested to put it in printed form. He
hopes that where the arguments do not convince, they will at least
bring the reader to what Mr. Gladstone called "that most wholesome
state, a suspended judgment."
Among others, the following writers are cited: Agassiz, Abbott,
Argyle, Askernazy, Balfour, Brewster, Ballard, Bruner, Barrande,
Bunge, Brown, Bowers, Bixby, Bonn, Clodd, Conn, Cope, Clarke,
Cooke, DeRouge, Dana, Dawson, Dubois, Etheridge, Fovel, Fiske,
Gladstone, Galton, Gregory, Hilprecht, Huxley, Howison, Haeckel,
Haecke, Harrison, Herschel, Hartman, Harnack, Heer, Humphrey,
Hoffman, Hamann, Ingersoll, Jones, Kelvin, Koelliker, Liebig, Lecky,
LeConte, Lang, Meyer, Max Mueller, Monier, Murchison, Naegeli,
Paulsen, Pfaff, Petrie, Pattison, R. Patterson, Pfliederer, Patton,
Parker, Ruskin, Romanes, Reymond, Renouf, Schliemann, Sayce, Starr,
Schultz, Sully, Spencer, Schmidt, Sedgwick, Stuckenberg, Snell, See,
Townsend, Thomas, Tyndall, Thomson, Virchow, Von Baer, Wallace,
Winchell, Warfield, Wright, Whitney, Wagner, Woodrow Wilson, White,
Wiseman, Zahm, Zoeckler.
I especially acknowledge indebtedness to Prof. George Frederick
Wright, of Oberlin College, in revising this book and for his
valuable suggestions and corrections, and especially his favorable
introduction. To his works confirming many of my conclusions I
refer the reader, as follows: The Logic of Christian Evidence, The
Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences, The Ice Age in North
America, Man in the Great Ice Age.
ALEXANDER PATTERSON.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
In issuing a third edition of this book it is proper to state what
changes, if any, have occurred in the discussion.
While the belief in Evolution is wide-spread, no known cause or
causes have yet been discovered by which the supposed changes in
species occurred, for "Evolution" is not a force or energy of any
kind, but only the name of a theory by which the present order of
nature is supposed to have come. The method Darwin proposed was
by Natural Selection arising from the prodigality of production,
the small variations that occur in living things, the struggle for
existence and the survival of the fittest, aided by environment and
other causes all of which by slow degrees during infinite ages have
produced the progressive order of species.
This has been decided to be insufficient and has been abandoned by
evolutionary writers. It is now agreed that the changes must have
occurred in variations originating in the embryo or in the germ, or
in the very substance of which that is composed. But all this is far
beyond human ken as all writers admit, as follows: "We are ignorant
of the factors which are at work to produce evolution. We do not
even know whether the life processes are conducted in accordance
with the principles of chemistry and physics, or are in obedience to
some more subtle vital principle." (Metcalf, _Organic Evolution_.)
President David Starr Jordan and Prof. Vernon Lyman Kellogg, both of
Stanford University, say: "These changes or variations, if they do
occur, cannot be explained." (_Evolution and Animal Life, p. 112._)
This is universally admitted by scientific writers and the
search is now for some proof for Evolution along these lines.
But as President Jordan makes the still greater confession that
"science does not comprehend a single elemental fact of nature,"
and such writers as the late Lord Kelvin, president of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, agree thereto, the
required proof seems far off.
So the discussion is in even a less tangible state than in Darwin's
time, for that had a theory supposed to be sufficient, but now there
is no known cause which can be demonstrated or offers the slightest
explanation, as admitted above by these leading writers.
The facts which are advanced to support the theory are dealt with
in this volume and their fallacy shown, that all may be explained
without reverting to such an unproven theory as Evolution.
ALEXANDER PATTERSON.
_Chicago, April 15, 1912._
INTRODUCTION
BY PROF. GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT OF OBERLIN COLLEGE.
The doctrine of Evolution as it is now becoming current in popular
literature is one-tenth bad Science and nine-tenths bad Philosophy.
Darwin was not strictly an Evolutionist, and rarely used the word.
He endeavored simply to show that Species were enlarged varieties.
The title of his epoch making book was, "The Origin of Species by
Natural Selection." On the larger questions of the origin of genera
and the more comprehensive orders of plants and animals, he spoke
with great caution and only referred to such theories as things
"dimly seen in the distance."
Herbert Spencer, however, came in with his sweeping philosophical
theory of the Evolution of all things through natural processes,
and took Darwin's work in a limited field as a demonstration of his
philosophy. It is this philosophy which many popular writers and
teachers, and some thoughtless Scientific men have taken up and made
the center of their systems. But the most of our men of Science are
modest in their expressions upon such philosophical themes. Herbert
Spencer does not rank among the great men of Science of the day.
Lord Kelvin's recent remarks upon the subject are most truthful and
significant. (See below pp. 18, 24.)
Mr. Patterson does well to emphasize the fact that _orderly
succession_ does not necessarily imply _evolution from resident
forces_. The orderly arrangements of a business house proceed
from the activity of a number of free wills, each of which might
do differently, but act in a definite manner, through voluntary
adherence to a single purpose. God is all wise and good as well as
all powerful. His plan of Creation will therefore be consistent
whatever be the means through which he accomplishes it.
Mr. Patterson, also, does well to dwell upon the "uncertainties of
Science." Inductive Science looks but a short distance either into
space or time, and has no word concerning either the beginning of
things or the end of things. Upon these points the Inspired Word
is still our best and our only authority. While not saying that
all the points in this little volume are well taken, I can say
that I disagree with fewer things in it than with those in almost
any other on the subject, and that it is fitted to serve as a very
needful tonic in these days of the confusion of bad Philosophy and
fragmentary Science.
GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT.
Oberlin, Ohio, Aug. 10, 1903.
FOREWORD.
Before entering upon the discussion we need to enquire as to the
meaning of the word "Evolution" as applied to the theory. We must
also ask a definition of the theory as given by its best-known
writers; and also enquire as to the spheres it claims to cover. To
clearly state a question is often half the task of solving it.
MEANING OF EVOLUTION.
We must distinguish between the ordinary conversational sense of
the word Evolution and the technical use of the term as designating
a theory by that name. We speak of the evolution of the seed into
the plant and the further evolution of the flower and the fruit,
meaning by our words merely the natural progressive action of the
life within the plant. This principle the evolutionist applies to
the whole universe which he says came in a similar way.
Again we use the word Evolution to describe any succession of things
which show progress. Such an instance is given us in the change in
appliances for the use of steam from the time when its power was
first observed in the lifting lid of the tea-kettle to the time
when it drives the latest ocean liner. This is, however, simply the
succession of a series of things in advancing order, but without
vital connection. Their real relation is outside of themselves in
the minds of the inventors who, in turn, may be many and widely
separated. Succession is not Evolution nor does it prove or imply
such a process. That demands an intimate and genetic connection
between the things as they appear, the higher growing out of the
substance of the lower in physical things and the intellectual
likewise.
The theory of Evolution asserts that from a nebulous mass of
primeval substance, whose origin it never attempts to account for,
there came by natural processes, as a flower from a bud, and fruit
from the flower, all that we see and know in the heavens above and
the earth beneath.
Tyndall's statement of the scope of the theory is as follows: "Strip
it naked and you stand face to face with the notion, that not only
the ignoble forms of life, the animalcular and animal life, not only
the more noble forms of the horse and lion, not only the exquisite
mechanism of the human body, but the human mind with its emotions,
intellect, will and all their phenomena, were latent in that fiery
cloud." (_Christianity and Positivism_, p. 30.)
Dr. Lyman Abbott further defines its application to man thus:
"Evolution is the doctrine that this life of man, this moral,
this ethical, this spiritual nature has been developed by natural
processes." (_Theology of an Evolutionist._)
Herbert Spencer's celebrated definition is as follows: "Evolution is
a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from general
to special, from the simple to the complex elements of life." But we
deny the right to apply this definition exclusively to the theory of
Evolution. Creation also proceeds on the same order, so also does
manufacture or any other intelligent operation.
The clearest account of the theory is that given by Prof. Le Conte,
as follows: "All things came (1) by continuous progressive changes,
(2) according to certain laws, (3) by means of resident forces."
(_Evolution and Religious Thought._) It is the latter clause in
which the real meaning of the theory lies. These "resident forces"
include exterior influences such as food, climate, etc.
The theories of Evolution are as many as the respective writers.
Each one has his own theory as to the scope and cause and operation
of it all. Theistic Evolution allows the intervention of God at the
creation of the primeval "fire-mist" and at the origin of life and
the production of man's spiritual nature. The atheist denies any
interference of a Creator at all. Haeckel says the best definition
of Evolution is "the non-miraculous origin and progress of the
universe." He and many others say that if the Creator is admitted at
any point, He may as well be admitted all along. This is consistent
Evolution.
The theistic and the atheistic evolutionist however agree in saying
that man was descended from the brute, as to his body at least, and
some even, as above shown, claim this descent for the whole man.
This doctrine as to man is the vital part of the whole theory and
in this all evolutionists are practically agreed. So that so far as
their effect on Christian doctrine and Bible fact is concerned, all
may be classed together.
CHAPTER I.
EVOLUTION AS AN UNPROVEN THEORY.
With perhaps the exception of Prof. Ernst Haeckel of Jena, all
evolutionists admit that Evolution is unproven. One of the latest
writers, and most impartial, is Prof. H. W. Conn, who says in
his "Evolution of To-day:" "Nothing has been positively proved
as to the question at issue. From its very nature, Evolution is
beyond proof.... The difficulties offered to an unhesitating
acceptance of Evolution are very great, and have not grown less
since the appearance of Darwin's _Origin of Species_, but have in
some respects grown greater." (pp. 107, 203.) He makes many such
admissions. Dr. Rudolph Schmidt writes, "All these theories have not
passed beyond the rank of hypotheses." (_Theories of Darwin_, p.
61.) Prof. Whitney, of Yale University, says, "We cannot think the
theory yet converted into a scientific fact and those are perhaps
the worst foes to its success who are over-hasty to take it and use
it as a proved fact." (_Oriental and Linguistic Studies, pp. 293-4_)
Tyndall said: "Those who hold the doctrine of Evolution are by no
means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data, and they only yield
to it a provisional assent." (_Fragments of Science_, p. 162.) Dr.
J. A. Zahm writes: "The theory of Evolution is not yet proved by any
demonstrative evidence. An absolute demonstration is impossible."
(_Popular Science Monthly_, April, 1898.) Huxley said, "So long
as the evidence at present adduced falls short of supporting the
affirmative, the doctrine must be content to remain among the
hypotheses." (_Lay Sermons_, p. 295.) Down to the end of his life,
he said the evidence for Evolution was insufficient. (_Quarterly
Review_, January, 1901.)
This universal admission will be a surprise to the non-scientific,
especially in view of the astounding and sweeping claims the theory
has made. It will seem strange that a confessedly unproven theory
should be made the basis of all "modern thinking," the foundation
of a universal philosophy, the cause of a revolution in theology,
and the reason for rejecting the narratives of the Bible, and, on
the part of some, of abandoning Christianity and launching into
atheism. Yet such is the case. Well may we draw a long breath here
and say, Is this Science? Is it scientific to accept as true an
unproven theory and make it the basis of all belief? We have even
more startling facts to present as to this amazing form of unbelief.
In discussing Evolution, we must also continually distinguish
between fact and theory, between things proven and assumed. For the
writers continually intermingle these in a confusing way. We need
ever to ask concerning its statements, Is this proven or assumed?
The jury have a right to ask that everything be proved absolutely
before rendering a verdict for Evolution.
EVOLUTION IS NOT ACCEPTED BY ALL SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS.
The statement is often made that Evolution has "the Consensus of
Scholarship." This carries force to the non-scientific, indeed to
all, for we must rest our faith, for facts at least, on the opinion
of scientists. But while many have followed it, there remain many
scholars who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Prof. Haeckel, its
greatest living advocate, complains bitterly of the opposition of
many of the scientists of Europe, and that many once with him have
deserted him.
The late Dr. Virchow, the great pathologist and the discoverer of
the germ theory, was an active opponent of Evolution. He says: "The
reserve which most naturalists impose on themselves is supported
by the small actual proofs of Darwin's theory. Facts seem to teach
the invariability of the human and the animal species." (_Popular
Science_, pp. 50, 52.) Dr. Groette, in his inaugural address as
rector of the University of Strasburg, rejected Evolution.
Dr. D. S. Gregory of New York, editor of the Homiletic Review and
in a position to know the facts, vouches for the statement, that,
"It is a strange fact that no great scientific authority in Great
Britain in exact science, science that reduces its conclusions to
mathematical formulae, has endorsed Evolution."
The late Dr. J. H. W. Stuckenberg, of Cambridge, wrote me, that many
of the scientists of Germany reject the extreme views of Evolution,
and the inferences which men like Prof. Haeckel, of Jena, have
drawn from Darwinism. He quotes Dr. W. Haecke, a zoologist of Jena,
the home of Prof. Haeckel, as saying: "We the younger men must
free ourselves from the Darwinian dogma, in which respect quite a
number of us have been quite successful." Prof. Paulsen, of Berlin,
has exposed some of Haeckel's fallacies and regards his reasoning
as "a disgrace to Germany." He said the mechanical theory for
which Darwinism was held to stand, is rejected by such scientists
as Naegeli, Koelliker, M. Wagner, Snell, Fovel, Bunge, the
physiological chemist, A. Brown, Hoffman and Askernazy, botanists;
Oswald Heer, the geologist, and Otto Hamann, the zoologist. Of Carl
Ernst von Baer, the eminent zoologist and anthropologist, Haecke
affirms, that in early years he came near adopting the hypothesis
of Evolution into his system, but that at a later date he utterly
rejected it. The same change occurred in the late Du Bois Reymond
and Prof. Virchow, the eminent scientist of the University of
Berlin. (See also articles of Dr. Stuckenberg in _Homiletic Review_,
January, 1901, May, 1902.)
Sir J. William Dawson, the great geologist of Canada, utterly
rejected it and says: "It is one of the strangest phenomena of
humanity; it is utterly destitute of proof." (_Story of the Earth
and Man_, p. 317.) Dr. Etheridge, examiner of the British Museum,
said to Dr. George E. Post, in answer to a question, "In all
this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the
transmutation of species. This museum is full of proofs of the utter
falsity of these views." Thomas Carlyle called Evolution "the gospel
of dirt." Ruskin said of it, "I have never yet heard one logical
argument in its favor. I have heard and read many that are beneath
contempt." (_The Eagles Nest_, p. 256.)
Prof. Zöckler writes: "It must be stated that the supremacy of
this philosophy has not been such as was predicted by its defenders
at the outset. A mere glance at the history of the theory during
the four decades that it has been before the public shows that the
beginning of the end is at hand."
Such utterances are now very common in the periodicals of Germany,
it is said. It seems plain the reaction has commenced and that the
pendulum that has swung so strongly in the direction of Evolution,
is now oscillating the other way. It required twenty years for
Evolution to reach us from abroad. Is it necessary for us to wait
twenty years more to reverse our opinions? Why may we not pass upon
facts for ourselves without awaiting the "Consensus of European
Scholarship," which is after all so subject to perplexing reversals?
It makes plain people dizzy to attempt to follow leaders of opinion
who change with every wind that blows across the ocean.
Many citations will appear in the following pages which show the
strong exceptions taken by leading scholars against the theory
in whole or in part. Indeed, as said already, the arguments to
be given herein against Evolution are drawn from the statements
of leading evolutionists themselves. Some of these are earlier
opinions and some their latest utterances. In every case the state
of the discussion will be shown to be far from that "Consensus of
Scholarship" so airily claimed by the writers on the subject and so
unhesitatingly accepted by their followers.
It may be objected that some of these authorities are dead and that
later scholars differ from them. Not to mention the names of still
living writers named above, let us remark that all wisdom is not
left to our day. Socrates and Bacon are dead, yet their opinions are
still of value. Moses is dead, yet the Ten Commandments are still
believed if not obeyed. Our present evolutionary writers will also
one day be dead, yet they hope even then to be given some credit for
sense and science. The "consensus of scholarship" ought to include
wisdom past as well as present.
It is also to be remembered that there are thousands of quiet
thinkers who have never given in their adhesion to this startling
theory, and more, that the great masses of the church at least, have
no confidence in it. Those preparing to launch their ships upon this
current had better, as a matter of common prudence at least, wait a
while at least till the mists have rolled away.
DISCARDED THEORIES OF THE PAST.
Prof. George Frederick Wright says, "The history of science is
little else than one of discarded theories.... The so-called science
of the present day is largely going the way so steadily followed in
the past. The things about which true science is certain are very
few and could be contained in a short chapter of a small book."
(_The Advance_, May 12, 1902.)
It is sometimes charged to the church that it has held theories
which the discoveries of science have shown to be untrue. But it
must be borne in mind that these false theories were just as firmly
held by the scientists of the day as by the church.
Dr. Andrew White has written two great volumes on the warfare
between science and theology. He might write many and larger volumes
on the wars between the theories of science. Every one of these
discarded theories, and they are numbered by thousands, has been the
center of terrific conflicts.
Galileo's discovery of the satellites of Jupiter was opposed by his
fellow astronomers, who even refused to look at them through his
telescope. Dr. J. A. Zahm quotes Cardinal Wiseman as saying that
the French Institute in 1860 could count more than eighty theories
opposed to Scripture, not one of which has stood still or deserves
to be recorded. At a meeting of the British Association, Sir William
Thomson announced that he believed life had come to this globe by a
meteor. His theory lived less than a year. Mr. Huxley said that the
origin of life was a sheet of gelatinous living matter which covered
the bottom of the ocean. This theory had even a shorter life. Among
the most recent reversals of this kind is that of a universally held
theory, namely, that coral reefs are built up by the coral insects
in their desire to keep near the surface as the ocean's bottom
sinks. Prof. A. Agassiz has just demolished this theory.
Scholars were unanimous a short time ago that Troy was a myth. But
Dr. Schliemann's great discoveries have overthrown that "consensus
of scholarship." Prof. Harnack, one of the greatest of critics in
his great work, _The Chronology of the Christian Scriptures_, admits
that science, meaning Higher Criticism, has made many mistakes and
has much to repent of. Joseph Cook said, "Within the memory of man
yet comparatively young, the mythical theory of Strauss has had its
rise, its fall, its burial."
The thirty thousand citizens of St. Pierre on Martinique, trusting
in the assurances of the scientists, remained in their fated city
and the next day were overwhelmed in the most awful calamity of
modern times.
We may consider in this connection the dissatisfaction of some of
the greatest minds of evolutionary circles with the results of their
own theory.
Mr. Herbert Spencer is thus quoted, writing in his eighty-third
year: "The intellectual man, who occupies the same tenement with
me, tells me that I am but a piece of animated clay equipped with
a nerve system and in some mysterious way connected with the big
dynamo called the world; but that very soon now the circuit will be
cut and I will fall into unconsciousness and nothingness. Yes I am
sad, unutterbly sad, and I wish in my heart I had never heard of the
intellectual man with his science, philosophy and logic." (_Facts
and Comments._)
Prof. Frederic Harrison, the agnostic, thus writes: "The philosophy
of evolution and demonstration promised but it did not perform. It
raised hopes, but it led to disappointment. It claimed to explain
the world and to direct man, but it left a great blank. That blank
was the field of religion, of morality, of the sanctions of deity.
It left the mystery of the future as mysterious as ever and yet as
imperative as ever. Whatever philosophy of nature it offered, it
gave no adequate philosophy of Man. It was busy with the physiology
of Humanity and propounded inconceivable and repulsive guesses about
the origin of Humanity." (_North American Review_, December, 1900,
p. 825.)
From the opposite side of the field, President Woodrow Wilson
writes: "This is the dis-service scientific study has done for us;
it has given us agnosticism in the realm of philosophy, scientific
anarchism in the field of politics. It has made the legislator
confident that he can create and the philosopher sure that God
cannot." (_Forum_, December, 1896.)
UNCERTAINTY OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES IN GENERAL.
Another feature which strikes the non-scientific mind curiously
is the wide differences among great scientists as to the facts of
nature. The age of the earth is variously declared to be ten million
years by some, and by others equally able, a thousand million years.
The temperature of its interior is stated to be 1,530 degrees
by one, and 350,000 degrees by another. Herschel calculated the
mountains on the moon to be half a mile high, Ferguson said they
were fifteen miles high. The height of the Aurora Borealis is
guessed from two and a half to one hundred and sixty miles, and its
nature is still more widely described. The delta at the mouth of the
Mississippi was calculated by Lyell to have been 100,000 years in
forming. Gen. Humphrey, of the United States survey, estimated it at
4,000 years, and M. Beaument at 1,300 years.
The deposits of carbonate of lime on the floor of Kent Cavern in
England have been estimated by different scientists to have been
from a thousand to a million years in forming.
The discovery of radium and other similar substances, it is said, is
almost revolutionizing the theories of the constitution of matter
and affecting all physical science.
These facts are not cited to discredit science. No one in his
senses would fail to acknowledge our great debt to the earnest and
laborious workers in these varying fields. But these instances
of many such are cited to show that there is need for caution in
accepting proposed theories.